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Bedford staff update committees on Great Road work, town common plans and $300,000 trail grant application
Summary
Town staff briefed the joint Bicycle and Transportation advisory committees on traffic-improvement work at the Loomis/Great Road junction, planned signal upgrades at Bacon Street, updated Town Common schematics headed to Town Meeting, and a Reformatory Branch trail crossing for which the DPW applied for a roughly $300,000 state construction grant.
Town of Bedford staff on Feb. 4 told the joint Bicycle Advisory Committee and Transportation Advisory Committee that work has started to address a bottleneck at Loomis Street and Great Road and that several other transportation projects are moving forward.
Jeanette Rebecchi, the town’s Capital Program Manager, said crews have begun work at the Loomis/Great Road junction as part of the Great Road bottleneck improvement project intended to improve traffic flow. She also said the town plans to upgrade signalization at Bacon Street where the Narrow Gauge intersects Great Road.
The updates also included revised schematics for a Town Common Update Plan that Rebecchi said the town hopes will be placed before voters at Town Meeting this spring. Rebecchi said planning for a Reformatory Branch trail crossing of Route 62 is underway and that the Department of Public Works has applied for a state construction grant “hopefully in the region of $300,000.”
Why it matters: the projects aim to address known congestion points and to extend pedestrian/bicycle connectivity across Route 62, a state route that creates a gap in the Reformatory Branch trail. If the state grant is awarded, the crossing would cover a significant portion of construction costs; Rebecchi did not provide a precise total project budget at the meeting.
What the committees heard: Rebecchi presented schematics for the Town Common and outlined the objectives of the Great Road improvements and signal upgrades. She characterized the grant request as an application in progress and did not report a decision or an award. Committee members did not record a formal vote or vote tally on any of the project items during the joint session.
Details and follow-up: Rebecchi said she tries to update the committees on the Bike & Pedestrian Master Plan each spring and suggested adding the master plan to the agenda for the next joint meeting in May. She did not give an exact dollar amount for total crossing construction costs beyond the approximate grant request; budget totals and milestones were described as planning-stage information.
Next steps: the committees scheduled their next joint meeting for Wednesday, May 6, where staff said they will continue to report project status and planned public engagement for the Town Common and trail crossing.
